On June 18, a mother living in Rochester, New York, later identified by police as 31-year-old Genuine Ridgeway, was fatally shot in front of her two children while sitting in a car. According to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, a witness saw her drive into an apartment complex parking lot in the Corn Hill neighborhood of the city when another vehicle soon drove up at around 2 PM.
An unknown number of assailants then hopped out and fired shots at the car Ridgeway and her children, aged 3 and 8, were seated, fatally wounding the Rochester mother. She was pronounced dead at the scene, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.
This man, Tray, witnessed the shooting. He was with the victim in her final moments, says he watched her take her last cough, and he sheltered her children, who were in the car with her during the shooting. He says she was shot approximately 17 times. pic.twitter.com/xjZihDwbVT
— Adria R. Walker (@adriawalkr) June 18, 2021
Tray, a witness of the fatal shooting and tragic aftermath, told the Democrat & Chronicle that Ridgeway was shot approximately 17 times, saying about the incident, “Another car pulled up like five minutes later. And two guns came out [of] the car, and they just started ringing off inside of the other car. So at that moment, I’m like, ‘Somebody’s in that car, and somebody just got killed.’”
“The little girl ran up to the door, and she came in, and she was screaming, ‘My mom just got shot!’” he recalled to the New York news outlet. Tray then hugged the panicking child and invited her inside, adding, “I went outside to make sure it was okay because she said her little brother is still inside the car…So I go outside, and the neighbors already got him out the car by the time I got out there.”
Neither of the two children was physically injured.
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A GoFundMe page was launched by an apparent relative but is apparently not taking donations after receiving $1,700 of its $2,500 goal. Elsa Ridgeway, the fundraiser’s organizer, updated the page, saying, “No longer taking donations. Thank u won’t let me take it down.”
Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said to the Democrat & Chronicle about the ongoing investigation, “I’m really hoping, praying that someone that maybe has kids that age or relatives that age that could only try to imagine what those kids went through could find it in themselves to come forward and tell us what they know.”
Herriott-Sullivan also asks that anyone with information can get in contact with the police.
